HISTORY  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  LUNCHES  IN 

HIGH  SCHOOLS 

With  a  Discussion  of  the  Elements  of  Cost  in  School 

Lunch  Expenses 

BY 

J  ULIA  PULSIFER 

Superintendent  of  School  Luncheons  for  Women’s  Educational  and 
Industrial  Union.,  Boston,  Massachusetts. 

'“The  story  of  the  beginning  of  lunches  in  the  High  Schools  of  Boston 
is  the  story  of  the  beginning  of  the  school  lunch  movement  in  America.” 
In  1894  the  Boston  Schobl  Committee  passed  an  order  to  the  effect 
“that  only  such  food  as  was  approved”  by  them  “should  be  sold  in  the 
city  school  houses.”  The  order  was  the  result  of  an  agitation  begun 
under  the  leadership  of  Mrs.  Ellen  H.  Richards,  whose  interest  had 
been  aroused  by  a  realization  of  the  educational  value  that  lay  in  placing 
properly  prepared  food  before  young  people.  She  was  also  keen  to  see 
the  menace  to  health  that  lay  in  the  “goodies”  the  children  were  pur¬ 
chasing  at  recess  from  the  corner  stores,  and  in  some  cases  from  the 
lunch  counters  installed  by  janitors  in  the  school  buildings.  After  the 
passage  of  the  above-mentioned  order,  the  New  England  Kitchen,  then 
in  the  early  days  of  its  food  experiments,  was  asked  to  provide  the  food 
for  the  school  luncheons.  The  original  menus  were  carefully  worked 
out  under  the  supervision  of  Mrs.  Richards,  and  the  whole  scheme  was 
not  only  excellently  -planned  from  the  point  of  view  of  scientific  nutri¬ 
tion,  and  of  social  service,  but  it  was  also  on  a  good  business  basis. 
All  the  food  was  manufactured  at  the  Central  Kitchen  and  distributed 
to  the  serving  centers  at  the  schools.  Here  the  city  provided  the  space 
for  serving,  the  stationary  equipment,  and  the  fuel  for  reheating.  This 
is  practically  the  organization  that  exists  to-day,  nearly  20  years  after, 
except  that  the  work  is  under  the  management  of  the  Women’s  Educa¬ 
tional  and  Industrial  Union,  and  the  general  supervision  is  in  the  hands 
of  an  advisory  committee  composed  of  three  representatives  from  the 
Union  and  three  High  School  Head  Masters,  elected  annually  by  the 
Association  of  Head  Masters  of  the  Boston  High  and  Latin  Schools. 
The  business  has  doubled  in  the  past  seven  years,  and  luncheons  are  now 
being  served  to  upwards  of  5,000  children  at  16  different  High  Schools. 
The  deficit  in  the  smaller  schools  is  made  up  by  the  profit  in  the  larger 
ones,  so  that  all  get  the  same  service.  During  the  past  winter  the  manage¬ 
ment  of  the  Women’s  Educational  and  Industrial  Union,  realizing  that 
the  next  point  in  progress  must  be  along  educational  lines,  and  feeling 


From  the  Transactions  of  the  Fourth  International  Congress  on  School  Hygiene,  Buffalo,  August,  1913. 


2  FOURTH  INTERNATIONAL  CONGRESS  ON,  SCHOOL  HYGIENE 

l 

that  to  accomplish  this  the  School  Committed  itself  must  be  responsible 
for  the  lunch  work,  has  endeavored  to  turn  over  its  stewardship  to  that 
body.  This  change  has  not  yet  been  accomplished,  but  we  hope  for  it 
soon  as  the  next  point  in  the  development  of  the  High  School  Lunch 
System  of  Boston. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  development  of  luncheons  in  High  Schools 
all  over  the  country  has  been  rapid  and  noteworthy.  From  tables  in 
dark  basements  where  janitors  dispensed  candy  and  stale  cake  we  have 
advanced  to  huge  light  airy  lunch  rooms  on  the  top  floors  of  new  buildings 
with  all  that  is  modern  and  up-to-date  in  equipment,  and  with  a  menu 
varied  and  tempting.  This  is  especially  true  of  the  newer  High  School 
buildings  of  the  West.  Back  in  the  Last  we  are  still  struggling  with  the 
dark,  congested  lunch  room  in  the  basements  of  old  outgrown  buildings. 

An  investigation  during  the  winter  of  1910-11  in  the  State  of  Massa¬ 
chusetts  showed  that  in  67  cities  and  towns  lunch  was  served  ir\  High 
Schools.  Ten  of  these  lunch  rooms  were  under  the  direct  control  of 
the  school  authorities,  forty-three  were  money  making  enterprises, 
six  were  managed  by  women’s  clubs,  one  by  a  church  society,  five  by 
the  students  themselves,  and  two  by  the  Domestic  Science  Department 
of  the  school.  In  schools  where  the  lunch  rooms  are  run  for  the  profit 
of  the  managers  little  or  no  attention  is  paid  to  the  laws  of  hygiene  and 
nutrition.  The  young  people  are  provided  with  the  food  which  they 
are  most  likely  to  buy — sweets  and  pastry.  In  lunch  rooms  run  as 
social  service  enterprises  by  women’s  clubs,  definite  effort  is  made  to 
provide  nourishing  food  at  a  low  price,  and  usually  high  food  standards 
are  maintained.  This  is  true  also  of  lunch  rooms  under  school  control, 
and  in  addition  in  these  schools  some  connection  is  occasionally  made 
with  the  school  curriculum. 

Another  investigation  during  the  past  winter  has  shown  that  in  six¬ 
teen  of  the  larger  cities  of  this  country  the  lunch  work  has  been  placed 
under  the  control  of  school  authorities  after  various  experiences  with 
outside  management.  This  investigation  also  revealed  the  fact  that 
there  is  a  general  tendency  toward  centralization — the  management 
of  the  several  lunch  rooms  of  a  city  by  one  director,  the  natural  and 
most  frequent  method  of  organization  being  under  the  Domestic  Science 
Department.  The  benefits  resulting  from  school  control  are  obvious. 
So  far  very  little  advantage  has  been  taken  of  the  educational  oppor¬ 
tunities  latent  in  lunch  work.  Yet  there  is  a  growing  feeling  every¬ 
where  that  the  lunch  room  plants  may  be  used  in  connection  with  the 
courses  in  chemistry,  hygiene,  domestic  science,  decorative  art,  social 
training,  business  methods,  etc.  To  come  to  a  full  utilization  of  these 
educational  possibilities  of  course  teachers  and  school  boards  must 
have  full  responsibility  for  the  lunch  work. 


HISTORY  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  LUNCHES  IN  HIGH  SCHOOLS  3 

The  financial  status  of  school  lunch  rooms  has  been  the  object  of 
much  attention  with  us,  apd  we  have  been  requested  to  devote  a  con¬ 
siderable  portion  of  our  discussion  to  this  phase  of  the  subject.  We  have 
f  found  in  our  investigations  that  almost  never  are  two  school  lunch 
rooms  on  the  same  financial  basis.  The  term  “covering  all  expenses” 
requires  careful  definition,  and  for  the  purposes  of  this  paper  I  shall  take 
the  phrase  in  its  literal  meaning.  To  cover  all  expenses  means  to  pay 
not  only  for  food  and  service  but  for  superintendence,  equipment,  fuel, 
heat,  rent,  light,  water  rate^ — in  brief  all  the  expenses  which  a  commer¬ 
cial  lunch  room  must  meet,  It  is  obvious  that  if  a  school  restaurant 
had  to  meet  all  these  charge^  the  prices  would  be  prohibitive — especially 
in  small  schools  where  the  overhead  charge  per  capita  would  be  very 
high.  Since  the  School  Bodrd  requires  the  attendance  of  the  child  at 
an  hour  when  he  is  in  need  of  food,  that  Board  should  make  it  possible 
for  him  to  buy  that  food  cheaply  by  providing  a  comfortable  room  in  ' 
which  he  is  to  eat  it,  free  of  rent,  and  at  least  simple  equipment  for  pre¬ 
paring  it.  Some  school  boards  go  much  further.  It  is  in  this  matter 
of  subsidy  from  the  Board  that  school  lunch  rooms  vary  so  greatly. 

In  our  investigation  of  last  winter  we  found  no  High  School  lunch  could 
properly  be  said  to  be  “paying  all  expenses.”  The  centralized  lunch 
system  of  Boston  comes  nearest  to  this  status  of  any,  because  the  School 
Board  there  provides  no  place  for  the  cooking  of  the  food.  The  rent, 
heat,  light,  fuel,  etc.,  at  the  central  kitchen  are  paid  for  out  of  the  receipts 
from  the  luncheons.  These  overhead  charges  in  Boston  during  the 
winter  of  1911  and  1912  amounted  to  upwards  of  $4,000.  That  the 
system  can  carry  such  large  additional  costs,  and  still  maintain  prices 
as  low  as  other  High  School  lunch  rooms  not  so  burdened  is  undoubtedly 
due  to  the  saving  in  food  costs  and  supervision  that  accrue  under  a 
centralized  system  of  cooking.  It  is  also  somewhat  due  to  the  use  of 
the  less  expensive  forms  of  food,  which  affect  not  the  wholesomeness 
and  nutritive  value  of  the  lunches,  but  possibly  to  some  extent  their  variety 
and  attractiveness.  At  the  other  extreme  as  regards  subsidy  from  the 
School  Board  was  a  school  restaurant  where  the  receipts  were  required 
to  cover  only  the  cost  of  the  raw  material.  All  other  expenses  were 
met  by  school  funds.  The  majority  of  school  lunch  rooms,  however, 
were  in  a  class  between  these  two  extremes — almost  no  two  being  exactly 
alike.  Some  pay  for  their  own  fuel,  more  do  not.  Some  pay  superin¬ 
tendent’s  salary,  others  do  not,  and  so  it  goes.  In  many  there  is  prac¬ 
tically  no  book-keeping  at  all,  and  it  is  impossible  to  discover  their  actual 
financial  status.  As  a  general  rule,  the  lunch  rooms  in  small  schools 
where  the  patronage  is  small,  receive  the  most  help  in  the  way  of  subsidy 
from  the  Board.  In  a  city  where  there  are  both  large  and  small  High 
Schools  and  a  centralized  management,  the  profits  of  the  large  schools 

\ 

UNIVER^  iTY  ( 
ILLINOIS  lIBR/- 
AT  URSANA-CHA.V 


4 


FOURTH  INTERNATIONAL  CONGRESS  ON 


iCHOOL  HYGIENE 


pay  the  deficit  in  the  small  ones,  and  all  get  hqual  service.  In  cities, 
however,  where  there  is  no  centralized  system,  the  large  schools  are 
very  apt  to  be  exploited  by  business  firms  whd  draw  considerable  profit 
from  the  enterprise,  while  the  small  schools  sfiffer  from  high  prices  and 
poor  food.  j 

A  study  of  the  elements  of  cost  in  our  own /system,  and  a  comparison 
with  these  same  elements  in  other  systems  has  been  very  suggestive 
to  us.  First  we  compared  the  Boston  financial  statement  with  that 
of  Bradford,  England — the  only  other  school  lunch  system  having  a 
central  kitchen  like  ours  which  we  have  personally  investigated.  We 
found  that  the  food  in  both  Boston  and  Bradford  amounted  to  54%  of 
the  total  expense.  The  delivery  in  Boston  was  4%  of  the  total,  in  Brad¬ 
ford  17%;  the  wide  difference  being  due  to  the  fact  that  in  Boston  there 
are  only  16  serving  centers,  in  Bradford  25;  also,  in  Bradford  the  dishes 
are  carried  back  and  forth  each  day,  the  cleansing  of  them  being  done 
at  the  central  plant.  The  labor  item,  however,  is  much  higher  in 
Boston,  being  32%,  while  in  Bradford  it  is  18%.  This  is  partly  due 
to  the  higher  wages  paid  generally  in  this  country.  It  is  also  much 
more  economical  of  labor  to  concentrate  all  the  heavy  work  of  dish 
washing  at  one  point  and  to  do  it  with  up-to-date  apparatus.  However, 
it  is  significant  that  the  labor  and  delivery  together  in  each  city  amount 
to  36%  of  the  total  expense,  showing  that  there  would  be  apparently 
nothing  to  be  gained  in  Boston  if  we  adopted  Bradford’s  method  of 
sending  the  dishes  to  the  central  plant  each  day,  the  extra  delivery 
costing  as  much  as  the  saving  in  labor.  We  have  grouped  all  other 
expenses  under  the  head  of  “general;”  in  Boston  they  amount  to  9% 
of  the  total,  in  Bradford  9^2%.  The  similarity  of  all  these  costs  made 
us  feel  in  Boston  that  we  had  a  system  equal  at  least  in  economy  of  admin¬ 
istration  to  that  of  Bradford  which  had  been  held  up  to  us  as  a  model. 
Our  next  comparison  was  with  the  High  School  lunch  system  of  St.  Louis. 
We  found  that  food  costs  there  were  67%  of  receipts,  and  during  the 
same  time  53%  with  us.  After  studying  the  situation  in  the  two  cities 
we  realized  the  reason  for  this  divergence.  In  St.  Louis  most  of  the 
bread  stuffs  are  purchased  as  well  as  the  ice  cream,  so  that  the  cost 
price  includes  the  labor  and  the  manufacturer’s  profit.  In  Boston  all 
the  bread  and  rolls  are  manufactured  at  the  central  kitchen,  and  there 
the  cost  price  represents  only  the  value  of  the  raw  material,  the  cost 
of  the  labor  on  these  goods  showing  up  in  our  labor  item  which  is  3% 
more  than  in  St.  Louis,  no  manufacturer’s  profit  being  included  at  all 
because  we  do  our  own  baking.  Another  reason  for  the  higher  labor 
cost  in  Boston,  it  being  32%  there  and  only  29%  in  St.  Louis,  is  the 
division  of  the  business  into  16  centers  where  $5,000  less  was  received 
than  in  the  six  centers  of  St.  Louis.  Of  course  a  system  where  the  sales 


HISTORY  AND'  DEVELOPMENT  OF  LUNCHES  IN  HIGH  SCHOOLS 


5 


amounted  to  $57,000  at  six  centers  would  be  more  economical  of  labor 
than  one  where  the  sales  amounted  to  $52,000  at  16  centers.  This 
comparison  is  interesting  because  it  is  of  two  systems  receiving  very 
different  amounts  of  subsidy  from  their  respective  school  boards.  Boston 
could  not  afford  to  bring  its  food  costs  up  to  67%,  because  it  has  $4,000 
of  overhead  charges  to  meet,  items  of  expense  which  do  not  appear  at 
all  in  the  St.  Louis  budget,  being  borne  indirectly  by  the  Board  itself. 
(There  the  Board  provides  kitchen  space  in  the  schools  free  of  rent, 
heat,  light  and  fuel  charges,  thus  relieving  the  school  lunch  system  of 
the  expense  of  a  central  plant.) 

Another  comparison  of  va|ue  to  us  in  Boston  is  that  of  our  own  annual 
statements  year  by  year.  We  have  found,  as  would  naturally  be  expected, 
the  food  costs  steadily  rising  from  49%  in  1907  to  54%  in  1912 — a  dif¬ 
ference  which  would  have  necessitated  the  raising  of  prices  if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  fact  that  along  with  this  increase  came  a  corresponding 
increase  in  the  volume  of  business,  almost  doubling  in  six  years.  This 
lowered  our  service  cost  per  capita  and  made  it  possible  to  maintain 
our  old  prices  for  food  which  was  costing  us  much  more. 

These  points  which  I  have  tried  to  make  merely  go  to  show  that  as 
regards  the  business  side  of  the  High  School  lunch  room  problem,  it  is 
like  any  other  business — centralization  goes  for  economy  of  administra¬ 
tion,  and  the  higher  the  costs  the  more  must  be  received  for  the  product 
unless  sales  increase  in  proportion. 

In  conclusion  I  want  to  point  out  again  that  it  is  with  the  School 
Board  itself  that  the  responsibility  for  the  school  lunch  work  must 
ultimately  rest;  in  many  cities  the  Boards  have  shouldered  this  respon¬ 
sibility,  in  others  they  are  planning  to  do  so,  and  I  wish  to  lay  before 
this  meeting  the  discussion  of  the  question  which  we  have  found  settled 
so  variously  in  the  different  cities  of  this  country.  Should  the  school 
lunch  restaurant  pay  all  expenses,  including  charges  for  rent,  heat, 
light,  etc.,  or  is  it  legitimate  that  the  School  Board  should  lower  the 
price  to  the  students  by  taking  upon  itself  some  of  the  financial  burden? 
In  the  latter  case  to  what  extent  should  the  school  lunch  be  subsidized? 
Is  it  possible  to  set  a  standard? 


i 


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